All articles by Jaclyn Jaeger – Page 109
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Monitoring Your Anti-Retaliation Program
Complaints of whistleblower retaliation are a persistent problem in Corporate America, and all the more irritating for companies that may believe they have solid anti-retaliation programs in place. Inside, we walk through the harder part of anti-retaliation efforts: not just creating the policy, but working with HR and line managers ...
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SEC Issues Wells Notice to Magnum Hunter
Magnum Hunter Resources has received a Wells Notice for potential material weaknesses in the company’s internal control over financial reporting. The oil and gas producer said it intends to respond in the form of a Wells submission, setting forth why it believes an enforcement action against it is not warranted. ...
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Sustainability Group Issues Standards for Resource Transformation Sector
The Sustainability Accounting Standards Board issued its latest set of standards, this time for companies in the resource transformation sector to help them improve disclosure of environmental, social, and governance risks. The standards represent the seventh set in a planned industry-focused series of sustainability standards. Details inside.
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NLRB’s Brain-Dump on Lawful Company Policies
Image: The National Labor Relations Board has churned out an extensive piece of guidance on what makes a company policy lawful or not, on everything from making disparaging comments (often can’t be forbidden) to talking with the media or regulators (forget about forbidding it) and many more. “The memo is ...
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BSI SA to Pay $211 Million Penalty Under Swiss Bank Program
BSI SA, one of the 10 largest private banks in Switzerland, this week became the first bank to reach a resolution under the Department of Justice’s Swiss Bank Program, which provides a means for Swiss banks to resolve potential criminal liabilities in the United States. BSI will pay a $211 ...
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The Latest State of Affairs on Whistleblower Claims
Image: A final rule from OSHA has smoothed the path for employees to file whistleblower retaliation claims under the Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank acts and put companies in a more difficult spot to defend themselves. “The final rule reinforces that these types of anti-retaliation provisions are here to stay,” says Daniel ...
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Sandoz to Pay $12.6 Million for Misrepresenting Drug Pricing Data
Drug maker Sandoz last week reached a $12.64 million settlement with the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General to resolve allegations that it misrepresented drug pricing data to the Medicare program. The Sandoz settlement is the largest ever entered into under OIG’s drug price reporting civil ...
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PayPal to Pay $7.7 Million for 486 Sanctions Violations
PayPal, an electronic payments company, this week reached a $7.7 million settlement with the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control for processing 486 transactions in violation of OFAC regulations governing sanctions programs. The civil penalties could have been significantly higher, had PayPal not self-reported the violations and cooperated with ...
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SEC Investigating American Apparel
Embattled retailer American Apparel said this week in a Form 10-K filing that the Securities and Exchange Commission has ordered a formal investigation against it related to the ousting of Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Dov Charney. The company also provided the latest details on an internal investigation launched in ...
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Schlumberger Subsidiary Fined $232.7 Million for Sanctions Violations
Schlumberger Oilfield Holdings, a subsidiary of oilfield services giant Schlumberger, has entered into a guilty plea and will pay a record $232.7 million criminal fine for economic sanctions violations. The amount is the largest criminal fine in connection with an International Emergency Economic Powers Act prosecution. Details inside.
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Managing Data Security and Privacy Risks 2.0
Image: Modern technology allows powerful employee monitoring ability to sharpen business performance and even support compliance efforts. The bad news: Those technologies also spawn a new set of data security risks to keep compliance officers busy. “The key is trying to strike a balance between the employee’s personal privacy interests ...
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Human Trafficking Compliance Arrives for Federal Contractors
Image: Starting this month, government contractors must ensure that their supply chain is free of human-trafficking activities. The thicket of new requirements isn’t too different conceptually from other compliance obligations, but the nuances of human-trafficking risk will pose some tricky policy challenges. Companies previously might not have thought much about ...
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Bilfinger Probe Uncovers Bribery Related to World Cup
German-based engineering company Bilfinger said that an internal investigation has uncovered potential bribery payments made to government officials in Brazil for contracts related to the 2014 World Cup. After launching an internal investigation into the allegations last year, “suspicions have now been substantiated,” Bilfinger said. Details inside.
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OECD: Greece Must Focus More on Foreign Bribery
The risk of Greek companies bribing foreign officials is substantial, and yet Greece has not given the same priority to fighting foreign bribery as it has to domestic corruption, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's Phase 3bis Report on Greece." The repor examines issues that the Working ...
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Swiss AG Freezes $400 Million in Petrobras-Related Assets
The Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland (OAG) is currently conducting nine investigations in the Petrobras case and has issued an order freezing USD$400 million in assets deposited in Switzerland in connection with the
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Successor to ECOA Will Launch Certification Effort
More news from the groups formerly known as the Ethics & Compliance Officer Association and the Ethics Resource Center: The two have been subsumed into a new “Ethics & Compliance Initiative,” which has spawned a third wing, the Ethics & Compliance Certification Institute, to certify compliance professionals. More inside.
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Justice Department Extends Biomet DPA
The Department of Justice will extend for an additional year a deferred-prosecution agreement reached in 2012 with Biomet, after the medical device maker self-reported additional potential violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The three-year DPA, which would have expired March 26, 2015, will now expire on March 26, 2016. ...
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Mitigating FCPA Risks in Pharma, Med Device Sectors
Image: SEC Enforcement Director Andrew Ceresney recently dropped new hints on FCPA risks for pharma and medical devices, plus suggestions on how to avoid those risks. “Our FCPA focus obviously covers many industries,” he said. “But the pharma industry is one on which we have been particularly focused in recent ...
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FinCEN Advisory Addresses Jurisdictions With AML Deficiencies
The Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network this week issued guidance in response to the Financial Action Task Force’s updated list of jurisdictions with Anti–Money Laundering and Counter–Terrorist Financing (AML/CFT) deficiencies. “Financial institutions should consider these changes when reviewing their enhanced due diligence obligations and risk–based policies, procedures, and practices ...
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Petrobras Probe Portends Brazil Enforcement Crackdown
Image: Suddenly anti-corruption enforcement seems to be serious in Brazil—to the point that businesses working there might want to pay more heed to enforcement risks from Brazilian regulators themselves. The catalyst is the sweeping investigation into state-owned oil company Petrobras, riveting Brazil this month. “We can expect much more enforcement ...